White House Press Secretaries

2007-10-07T10:32:14-04:00https://images.c-span.org/Files/291/201380-02-m.jpgFormer White House press secretaries for Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton talked about what the job was like and speculated on whether it would be harder in today’s digital age of 24/7 news coverage and multi-task journalists. Proposals for improvements in news reporting included not holding the press briefings as live events and returning to decentralized coverage of federal agencies. Professor Kumar spent nearly 12 years in the White House during the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, watching presidential communication and how the press and the presidents interact. Mara Liasson, a former White House correspondent, moderated.

Martha Joynt Kumar is the author of Managing the President’s Message: The White House Communications Operation, published by Johns Hopkins University Press.

“White House Press Secretaries: The Real Story” was a session of the annual Society of Professional Journalists national convention.

White House Press Secretaries
Former White House press secretaries for Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton talked about what the job was like and speculated on whether it would be harder in today’s digital age of 24/7 news coverage and multi-task journalists. Proposals for improvements in news reporting included not holding the press briefings as live events and returning to decentralized coverage of federal agencies. Professor Kumar spent nearly 12 years in the White House during the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, watching presidential communication and how the press and the presidents interact. Mara Liasson, a former White House correspondent, moderated.